labyrinth

That winter arrived earlier than ever. Valen went to an old cemetery in the mountains to deliver the last headstone. Mist lay over the ground, and snow had covered every carved name on the stones. As he turned to leave, he saw a woman standing beside a fresh grave. Her white hair moved in the wind. Valen asked: "Whose grave is this?" The woman answered: "Someone who no longer needs it." Valen frowned. "That's a strange answer." The woman turned. Her black eyes met his directly. "Do you always speak to death like this?" Valen laughed. "Do you always look so much like death?" For the first time, Morana smiled. And that smile was the beginning of their undoing. Valen went to the cemetery every night. Not for the dead. For Morana. He didn't know who he was speaking to. He didn't know the woman who sat beside him had witnessed the last breath of humans for thousands of years. He only knew that beside her, for the first time, he was not afraid of death. One night, Valen asked: "Are you afraid of death?" Morana answered quietly: "I am death." Valen laughed—but when he saw her eyes, the laughter faded from his lips. "Really?" Morana nodded. "You should run from me." Valen looked at her for a long moment. Then he said: "If I was going to be afraid of you, I would have left that first night." Morana lowered her gaze. "Valen..." "What?" "You must not fall in love with me." Silence fell between them. Valen gave a very small smile. "You're too late." Morana saw his fate in that very moment. Not a year later. Not a month later. Only seven days. Seven days until Valen's last breath. She tried to disappear. But Valen followed her. She tried to grow cold. Valen only loved her more. She tried to lie to him. Valen simply took her hand and said: "You don't have to pretend you don't want me here." Morana said nothing. Because if she spoke, she would cry. On the seventh day, Valen fell in her arms. His last words came in a weak voice: "Morana..." "I'm here." "Then it's okay." "What is?" Valen smiled. "That when I die... you'll be the one to take me." Morana held him tighter. "No." For the first time, the Goddess of Death defied fate. "Not this time." But death showed no mercy—not even to its own goddess. A few seconds later, Valen's heart stopped. Morana held him until morning. And when the sun rose, for the first time in all her eternity, she wished she could die too. Years passed. The cemetery remained. But on the grave that Valen had never carved for himself, a name was engraved: VALEN And beneath it, one sentence: "He was the only human the Goddess of Death wished she could not let go." From that day on, every winter, snow would fall on every grave in the cemetery. Except on Valen's grave. Morana never allowed snow to rest upon his name. Because some dead are even death cannot forget.